Wimbledon Day 7 (Second Monday)

He was very, very tight. He lost all pop on the shots and was playing almost everything very safe. You could see the tension in his arm.

Emancipator wrote:Fed takes second set 6-2. Routine stuff. Still not timing the ball that well from what I've seen. Maybe it's the court.

Of course it is. Give me one player who times the ball well.......after the bounce here.

DECIMA wrote:Muller deserved the win there, was the better player.
Nadal was simply not good enough, forehand was poor, and serve went away completely in the 5th.

Once again, Nadal unable to handle pace. Aren't you bored to support a talentless player? Imagine if Muller was able to move like Nadal...what woul be the score? 1 , 1 and 2?

Nadal can only win on dead slow conds where is muscles make all the difference. Put him in front of decent player, with teh whole crowd behind him, he will still lose cause he simply cannot handle pace....like he could not beat a seeded player in teh USO before they introduced bigger ball.

This guys is the worst player amongst the all time greats. Only blind fans will support him.

bogbrush wrote:He was very, very tight. He lost all pop on the shots and was playing almost everything very safe. You could see the tension in his arm.

That's what people, his fans mostly, don't realise. he gets a tight arm, in spite of having the biggest margins on tour (clearance of the net and lines).

Federer today, played amazing sharp, risky shots on crucial points and delivered. But more importantly he won 16 slams with a racquet that gave 0 tolerance on timing playing guys who were hitting with much bigger safer racquets.

This is why I have always claimed federer was by far the mentally strongest player of the last 2 decades. Playing those risky shots having everything to lose has no equal in this game.

Tenez wrote:
Once again, Nadal unable to handle pace. Aren't you bored to support a talentless player?

I think you are getting hyper excited because Nadal has lost a match.
Muller served well today, and lots of Nadal's errors in the final set came when he was doing well in the point, many into out forehands missed when he's in control of the rallies and has had time to move over on his backhand.

yes I was hyper excited that Nadal proved a point once again? How many times did I tell you that Nadal can't handle pace and that his great record in slam is the result of slowing courts down everywhere?
In 2005 he was a FO champion yet coudl not handle Gilles' pace there until they provided even bigger balls at SW18.

A tennis player who has to stand 5m behind teh baseline to return serve cause his eye/hand coordination is too poor, should never be a 15 GS champion.....it's again the principle of the sport. It's like having a marathonien winning a 100m...it s not quite right!

Except you've just spent the last week calling this court really slow and like a clay court?

DECIMA wrote:Except you've just spent the last week calling this court really slow and like a clay court?

yes and it is slow-ish conds but Gilles is a big guy, hits flat with a heavy racquet....making the court look faster than what it is.

But I also said that it woudl be very easy for the groundsmen to speed the courts. Water them a bit and cut the grass a bit longer than 8mm....

Not sure what they did on Sunday but you , like everybody else, saw that Nadal had less time to whack the ball. Watch nadal v Khacha and look how much slower it was then.

DECIMA wrote:Except you've just spent the last week calling this court really slow and like a clay court?

he's actually now claiming that Muller makes the courts look fast.  That's the get out clause this time. Muller played well, but the surface helped.  Muller on clay may as well have been the yoghurt pot playing.  It would be the same result.

Tenez wrote:

DECIMA wrote:Except you've just spent the last week calling this court really slow and like a clay court?

yes and it is slow-ish conds
making the court look faster than what it is.
it woudl be very easy for the groundsmen to speed the courts.

I hope for your sake you don't suffer from vertigo, you'd be feeling very dizzy- Never has there been so many U-turns in so few words.

Fifth 5-setter loss at slams for Rafa in less than 2 years...
USO 2015 Fognini
AO 2016 Verdasco
USO 2016 Pouille 
AO 2017 Federer
Wimbledon 2017 Muller.

From google search.  He ain't outlasting opponents in his 30s, is he?

I am now going to sit back, relax, and watch the final set from somewhere around 4:4.  Would be more thrilling if I did not know the result, but should be enjoyable anyway.

Very bizarre serve stats between Nadal and Muller.

http://www.wimbledon.com/en_GB/scores/stats/1403ms.html

It appears as if they have the same serve! When clearly one was doing more damage than the other.

I have an explanation for it.

Well, maybe Muller is not as good a returner as Nadal.

Acing Federer is not the same as acing Muller, it?

No but the fact that Muller and Nadal hit serves at the same pace roughly is difficult to imagine when we saw one was keeping pace more than the other.

So to start with serve's speed is clocked right after the ball leaves the racquet so looks like Nadal's spinny balls, especially, with those large balls slow down consderably by the time they cross the court.
Also because Nadal spins his serve much more he loses accuracy over safety.

Yes, and that showed even in their groundstrokes.

Muller s energy low/efficient well placed shots vs Nadal's sweaty effort...no wonder he was exhausted in the end...and part of that exhaustion was psychological.

Dramatic day of tennis yesterday. Tournament certainly needed shaking out of what seemed a coma. No buzz around the tournament and suddenly a few results has re-ignited interest.

Have to say disappointed with the organisers for not shifting Djokovic's match. Especially when on Twitter reading how CC was prepped for play. Entitled to have a gripe about that. Certain had that been Murray, it would've been moved.

I watched the last 90 minutes or so of the final set yesterday.  It was entertaining even knowing how it would end.  Muller deserved it - he did look a little bit better than Rafa for most of that set.

One thing that struck me as very unusual was Rafa's body language.  It was plain obvious that he hated being there, deep in the fifth.  I do not remember seeing him with such negative body language in long matches before.  If anything, he always exuded confidence and enthusiasm as if playing tail end of the fifth set was the most joyous thing he could think of.  But not yesterday, he looked awfully anxious and unhappy.

I think he may have been realizing that his chances of winning the tournament were gone.  Even if he went through, recovery to beat Cilic wasn't really realistic and he knew it.  But he was definitely still trying - with all the fist pumping and nonsense to get the crowd to save his bacon - which really annoyed me.